PNEUMOCOCCAL VACCINES-PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Abstract

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of mortality and morbidity among children under five years of age. India is one among the countries with high mortality due to invasive pneumococcal disease. With the emerging resistance of pneumococcus to penicillin, especially in meningeal isolates, the focus is on prevention, which is mainly by pneumococcal vaccines. Since the current vaccines are serotype specific, it protects against invasive pneumococcal disease and is affected by geographic diversity of the serotypes, use of other targets such as pneumococcal surface protein A is explored. This commentary gives an overview of the pneumococcal vaccines that are in use and that are under development.